2007's 13 biggest technology flops

These much-hyped products and services from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook turned out to be lemons of the bitterest kind. From last to first, here's our list of the year's 13 biggest losers. Read 'em and weep.

Hyped products that were unlucky for some

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These much-hyped products and services from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook turned out to be lemons of the bitterest kind.

From iPhones that turned into iBricks, through broadband connections that were 'up to' no good to underwhelming operating-system updates, 2007 was full of disappointments. We surveyed the landscape and polled some old friends to come up with the 15 products, companies, and industries that left the most sour taste in our mouths.

From last to first, here's our list of the year's 13 biggest losers. Read 'em and weep.

PC Advisor staff contributed to this feature

#13. Screwed up to the max: Municipal WiMax

It sounded like a great idea: big cities would offer wide-area wireless internet access as part of their infrastructure, the same as roads, traffic lights... and sewers. A cheap, fast net connection anywhere within the ringroad, 24/7. What's not to love?

US cities blazed a trail of this net bonanza. Then public and private WiMax ventures started dropping like flies. Sprint and Clearwire called off their plans to build a nationwide WiMax network in the US, after Sprint CEO Gary "bet the company on WiMax" Forsee got canned in October 2006.

Then early in 2007 EarthLink bailed on its offer to foot the bill for a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco.

Citywide WiMax remains a pipe dream

Similar city-funded projects have bought the farm in Chicago; Milwaukee; and Anchorage, Alaska. Even Silicon Valley - arguably the most net-centric community this side of Mars - has had a hard time getting its WiMax plans off the ground. The big reason? Cost. Unwiring the whole valley would cost an estimated $200 million, or $133K a square mile. SV geeks can always park their cars near the Googleplex in Mountain View, whose wireless network covers 12 square miles.

As for the rest of the US, well, they can hope and pray that the search titans win the FCC auction for the 700MHz wireless spectrum in January, and then decide to open their network to the world.

Does Google have to do everything? And even then, that's not going to help British geeks toiling away in the Thames valley. So much for WiMax.

#11. Just Another Oxymoron: internet security

This year, bot herders proved they could harness enough zombie PCs to take down an entire country's infrastructure for a month. Estonia eventually recovered, but our notion of net invulnerability hasn't.

Meanwhile, private criminals used the Storm worm to created a botnet for hire containing millions of zombies - enough to take down a major network.

As with global warming, there's plenty of blame to go around - for everybody from developers of insecure software to home users who blithely log on without inoculating their PCs. Let's hope they get more of a clue in 2008.

Where bot herders lurk

#10. Singing an old familiar Zune: Microsoft Zune

Microsoft got a chance to do things right with its "iPod Killer" in 2007. And Zune 2.0 was certainly an improvement - offering 80GB of storage instead of 30GB, wireless syncing, improved touch controls, and a choice of nano-like 8GB players in a variety of bright colors (Gaviscon pink, anyone?).

But Microsoft failed to lose the Zune's proprietary DRM scheme or remove all its restrictions on wireless music sharing (you can share songs with other nearby Zune users, but they can listen to them only three times before the songs go up in smoke).

We're not the only ones disappointed in the Zune. According to the NPD Group, Microsoft still lags behind Sandisk and Creative Labs in market share for portable media players. And for every Zune Microsoft sells, Apple sells 30 iPods. Remember: you can't kill an iPod if you can't get close to it.

NEXT PAGE: trouble in the Office and the big cat diaries > >

These much-hyped products and services from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook turned out to be lemons of the bitterest kind.

#9. Sorry, we already gave: Office 2007

Many of us spent a decade learning how to use Microsoft Office. So now that we finally have it all down, Microsoft changes almost everything about the interface in 2007, and not for the better. Instead of simple-if-prosaic toolbars, Office 2007 serves up a jumble of confusing icons known as the 'Ribbon.'

Robert Luhn, editor in chief of DrBicuspid.com, says the new version was a stumble backwards. "Scrambled interface, incompatibility with old macros, but hey, I do get in-context spell checking," he says. "Is that worth the £200 upgrade? Me thinks not."

Overall, we liked the added support for XML and online collaboration tools when we reviewed Office 2007 late last year. But Ribbon schmibbon. We'll take the classic menus, please - even if we have to spend £20 for an add-in program to get them back.

#8. Needs to change its spots: Apple "Leopard" OS 10.5

Maybe we just got spoiled by the iPod and iPhone, but the glow came off Steve Job's halo after this feline fleabag debuted. Within days of its release last October, Mac users reported dozens of problems with the new OS, some more serious than others.

Among the many: wireless connections that slowly petered away, administrative logins that mysteriously disappeared, and a disturbing tendency to nuke data when moving it between two drives if the connection is interrupted.

Worse, a security bug that was fixed in OS 10.4 in March 2006 resurfaced in Leopard, according to Symantec. The Apple Mail vulnerability allows malicious attachments to execute code.

German security researchers discovered that Leopard came with its firewall turned off, leaving users vulnerable to attack. Adding insult to injury, some upgraders even reported a Windows-like Blue Screen of Death when upgrading from previous Mac OSes.

In mid-November, Apple released an update to Leopard that fixed some of the bugs, including the firewall glitch. Repairing Apple's reputation, however, may take slightly longer.

These much-hyped products and services from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook turned out to be lemons of the bitterest kind.

#7. Cannot be completed as dialed: voice over IP

Here's a recipe for disaster: Have the market leader in your industry sued by three of the biggest telecom companies on the planet. Have second-tier players go belly up overnight, leaving thousands of business customers without any phone service. Add in a healthy dose of security vulnerabilities, and bake at 450 degrees until crispy.

Any way you slice it, 2007 was a crappy year for VoIP. Oh and by the way, your VoIP line may be bugged.

In November a UK-based security researcher released SIPtap, a proof-of-concept exploit that allows remote users to tap into and record voice streams across the net.

#6. 'Up to' something: the broadband industry

In 2007 US users learned that some of the largest ISPs in the country - Comcast, Cox, Qwest, Cablevision, and Charter among them - throttle or otherwise interfere with BitTorrent traffic on the sly. Comcast denied it at first, then admitted to "traffic shaping" to discourage bandwidth-sucking peer-to-peer users. Now it's being sued by angry customers. Suddenly the whole net neutrality argument doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Meanwhile, all the major telecom providers who blithely handed their bitstreams over to the NSA without a subpoena are now demanding retroactive immunity for the deed. Whose bits are they, anyway?

But before UK users get too smug, try to remember the last time your broadband connection was as fast as the 'up to' figure you were quoted led you to believe. And then try to define what is meant by 'fair useage' on your ISP's download policy. Perhaps talk to Sky and Virgin subscribers about their ugly spat, or ask Ofcom to comment on the speed and build-quality of the UK's broadband infrastructure.

NEXT PAGE: Apple's bright-and-shiny thing, and reasons not to be cheerful for Yahoo > >

These much-hyped products and services from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook turned out to be lemons of the bitterest kind.

#5. The great, the bad, the ugly: Apple iPhone

Yes, we know. Sliced bread only wishes it were as great as the iPhone. And aside from minor flaws such as a tiny touch keyboard and lack of Flash support, the phone itself is pretty terrific. But the phone's 'broadband' mobile internet service and single (long-term) contract with only one carrier? Definitely second-rate. But if you want to switch from O2 to a different carrier - or pay as you go - you have to take your chances with the hackers.

The massive price tag doesn't help. If you've just shelled out the best part of three hundred quid on a phone, a monthly tariff of up to £55 is less than welcome.

And those who did try to open their iPhones to other carriers or third-party applications found themselves owners of £269 iBricks when Apple tweaked the firmware to lock them out.

Memo to Apple: it's time to treat iPhones for what they really are - pocket computers with phone functions built in - and open them up the world. Just a thought.

#4. No friend of dissent: Yahoo

We can't say we really expected much out of Yahoo in 2007. Giving CEO Terry Semel the boot was probably a good thing - especially after his $230m compensation package came to light.

Installing the original Yahoo, Jerry Yang, as head honcho also seems like a smooth move, even if the company seems permanently stuck in the number two position behind Google.

Yet there's one area where Yahoo can lay claim to being number one: creating political prisoners. At least three times over the past five years, information supplied by Yahoo to the Bejiing government has led to the incarceration of Chinese dissidents.

This year, Yahoo executives admitted they'd lied to US Congress when they claimed not to know why the Chinese demanded their subscriber data. Yang and general counsel Michael Callahan were forced to deliver a humbling public apology in front of a Congressional committee. Shortly thereafter, the company settled a suit brought by two of the dissidents' families.

These much-hyped products and services from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook turned out to be lemons of the bitterest kind.

#3. The antisocial network: Facebook Beacon

We have to hand it to Facebook for stealing the social-networking spotlight from MySpace this year. But once it got up on stage, Facebook laid an egg.

For example, opening up the Facebook platform to third-party developers was inspired. Now, six months later, those viral-to-the-point-of-influenza Facebook apps are mostly just irritating. (For the 27th time: no, I do not want to spam everyone in my network with another movie quiz, thank you. Now go away.)

The introduction of Facebook's Beacon advertising program was more than disappointing - it was disturbing. Suddenly, anything you purchased on Amazon or three dozen other sites would be broadcast to your Facebook friends.

Worse, even when you were logged out, Facebook still gathered the information, though the company says it didn't use the data.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologised and offered subscribers easier ways to opt out of Beacon, but the damage was already done, says Richard Laermer, principal at RLM PR in New York and author of Punk Marketing.

"The idea behind Beacon is fascinating, but the fact that it was being done for subscribers by someone else was less than cool," he says.

"It's like me fishing in your trash can for your store receipts (you haven't spotted me yet?) and then telling other people what you've bought. Not illegal, but oh so creepy."

How much damage has Beacon done to Facebook's rep? "Their PR value just went down about 40 percent," he adds.

#2. What is it good for: the high-def format war

February 2007: Sony declares its Blu-ray the winner of the hi-def format wars.

April 2007: Toshiba announces its HD DVD player is the first to sell more than 100,000 units.

July 2007: Blockbuster Video says it will carry only Blu-ray discs in more than 1400 of its retail outlets.

August 2007: Paramount and DreamWorks announce exclusive support for the HD DVD format.

September 2007: God help us, a third HD format has emerged: HD VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc).

Enough already.

Did we learn nothing from VHS vs Betamax, CD-R vs CD-RW, DVD-A vs SACD, and so on down the line? At least the warring DVD camps worked out a compromise in the mid-90s that allowed everyone to profit from the new movie format (although it took them a while).

Not so in HD land, where a take-no-prisoners attitude on both sides has left consumers cold. It will be a snowy day in Video Hell before we'll put our money down on either format.

NEXT PAGE: the most significant operating system... ever? > >

These much-hyped products and services from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook turned out to be lemons of the bitterest kind.

#1. Significant how? Windows Vista

Five years in the making and this is the best Microsoft could do?

It's not that Vista is awful. The integrated security and parental controls are nice, and the Aero interface is as whizzy as it gets. Searching and wireless networking are much faster and easier than under XP.

It's just that Vista isn't all that good. Many of the innovations the operating system was supposed to bring - such as more efficient file and communications systems - got tossed overboard as Microsoft struggled to get the OS out the door, some three years after it was first promised. Despite its hefty hardware requirements, Vista is slower than XP.

When it debuted last January, incompatibilities were rampant - in part because hardware and software makers didn't feel any urgency to revamp their products to work with the new OS. The user account controls that were supposed to make users feel safer just made them feel irritated. And at £99 to £323, we couldn't help feeling more than a little gouged.

No wonder so many users are clinging to XP like shipwrecked sailors to a life raft, while others who made the upgrade are switching back.

We have no doubt Vista will come to dominate the PC landscape, if only because it will become increasingly hard to buy a new machine that doesn't have it pre-installed. And that's disappointing in its own right.

Comments

Allen Thomas said: Comments,Allen Thomas,I switch, to Linux Ubuntu, which is almost as easy to use as Windows Dinosaur, takes up less space on the hard disk, is quicker and more secure. On the odd occasion I need a Windows program I can run it on a Virtual Machine , oh and did I mention the Linux program are far less expensive and now relatively easy to install. I also know virtually nothing about writing programs which made early versions of Linux impossible to use.

Neil said: Comments,Neil,None of my friends and acquaintances are even thinking of buying into HD or Blue-ray. This stuff is only going to be useful when there is loads of material you want to view in HQ, and genuine 1080 quality large TV's are affordable.
The only possible use I have at the moment for the technology is to back up my ever-growing multimedia collection on my PC and at the moment the benefit of the reduced number of disc swaps is far out-weighed by the cost.
I think this technology is in danger of going the way of the SACD music standard which only has a niche following, despite being on the market for seven or so years.
Could this be the electronics industries biggest flop of all time???

sadsda said: Comments,sadsda,dadadad

Belatucadrus said: Comments,Belatucadrus,Can't say I disagree with any of them, which must have made 2007 a really depressing and expensive year for the tech-heads who just had to have all of those gizmos. Then just when you didn't want people to know what you bought, Facebook lets the cat out of the bag.ROTFLMAO.